Pitching to the Opposition

by Carl Nelson

If you are a Conservative, you might have found that the very discussions Americans have been raised to conduct make you an outlier and place you outside the Overton Window of acceptable conversation with the Elites and/or Progs with whom you might currently dispute.  A Conservative’s perspective immediately tag us as someone to be ‘cancelled’.  If you are so bold as to suggest that Climate Change is a hoax, that Green Power doesn’t pencil out any better than the comic book Green Lantern, that the 2020 election was fraudulent, that vaccinations need a hard re-evaluation, or that President Trump was a good leader… there is a good chance they will call you “a complete nut job” if a close friend – or one of a basket of extreme social slurs if not.  If by chance the conversation proceeds anywhere beyond this to a discussion of particulars, the time will pass about fast as eternity as you sniff the burning rubber of spinning wheels.  You are wheels without traction, tongues wagging in different languages, frustrated moths circling and flies banging their heads on windows.  How is it possible to traverse this divide?

I would recommend that Conservatives argue the popularity of their particular perspectives, rather than the supportive facts.   Several reasons suggest this.  First, a ‘Deplorable’ who argues the popularity of their position does not threaten an ‘Elite’ and/or Prog.  A habituate of the Elite position has already committed themselves to being a member of a natural aristocracy.  An Elite might give you an argument here, but it’s one they wouldn’t mind losing.  In their minds, being one of the multitude of lo brows is always dross.

Second, I would recommend pointing out to them that not only is the Conservative movement large, but that it is growing; that it is where the conversation is going.  You might point out to them the gains Conservatives have made among minorities, and among the blue collar workers.  You might point out the fracturing of the Democratic base, the wilting of the Unions, the escape of residents from blue collar cities and states.  You might also point out the market loss of the Democratically controlled media, and the remarkable gains of the new media which have sprouted up that are Conservative.  That the people want fresh intellectual food, and it is the Conservative Media who are now supplying it.  I even saw a post recently remarking on the Conservative turn among high school males. Get with it, Elites!  You’re being mothballed.

I think this is a winning strategy for several reasons.  First, no matter how many times a Democrat will tell you how fringe your opinions might be, in their hearts they believe themselves to be the minority who has shaved the kernel of truth in such rarified terms as only the exceptionally gifted might grasp.  Read the impenetrable gobbledygook they publish!  They will really not mind you having the slobbering public on your side.  After all, this is why they must cheat in the first place – and their intellectual leadership as much as say so.

Third, the Elites are communards in their souls.  They cannot exist outside of their circles.  They need the crowd to know themselves, and a larger crowd is alluringly better than a smaller one.  The Progs are always seeking to expand their reach.  And if they think you are beginning to attract more followers than themselves, they’re going to sneak a peek at how you might be doing this.  They prefer more power to less.  In other words, you won’t have to lead them to your arguments and informational sources and argue them yourselves, when they can misappropriate your ideas and use them for themselves.  Witness the Chinese CCP, who have already moved from Communist to Fascist within our lifetimes.  And with the collapse of their economy, and the purchasing and theft of ours, who knows where the accommodation may settle?

Fourth, once they’ve accommodated to many of the Conservative points of view in order to increase their following, these Progs might become faux Conservatives themselves (of course, with a newly approved name).  Black can become white overnight with this crowd.  And they become like the teenager who begins berating the father for the very error the father had been criticizing in them.  That’s how you know they’ve absorbed the lesson.

If Conservatives are successful in this strategy, I believe we can avoid a war by allowing the popularity of reality itself to force an accommodation.

Carl Nelson is a poet/playwright/essayist who publishes regularly in the New English Review.  To see more of his work please visit magicbeanbooks.co